Yesterday I witnessed something I find myself keep going back to.
As I was leaving the gym locker room, a girl was abusing the cleaner to help her find a receipt she lost which she steadfastly made her search through the bin for.
This really got to me.
Not only for her disrespect at the woman's job as a cleaner and not a slave; but also at her inherent racism. The cleaner was from East Africa and so the girl undignified herself even more by speaking to her as though she was thick and could not understand English - an attitude she would not have taken had the cleaner been Bristolian and with a bit of bite. But with someone she felt she could dominate, she did so and demonstrated outrightly her ignorance.
But above all this I blame myself. For seeing this and standing by. Saying nothing.
Why did I choose to walk away when I could see this injustice and know it needed to be confronted?
I don't know. I don't have the answer. But it's been eating me up ever since.
That's so awful! Don't beat yourself up that you didn't intervene, because the sad thing is that you will definitely get another chance. I see this sort of thing all the time. Next time you'll think back to this and you'll have the confidence to step in and do the right thing xx
ReplyDeleteP.S brilliant first blog. Really made me think :)
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke 1729-1797)
ReplyDeleteAll that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do nothing. (John Taylor 1948 - )
Becky- this stuff happens all the time. Most people either ignore it or worse still don't even notice it. At least you're not one of THEM!
Hmmmmm
ReplyDeleteI reckon the most simple answer is aim to live with no regrets.
And if you do feel guilty assess why and learn from it for next time. Everyone makes 'mistakes' after all.
Perhaps it was your state of mind, which didn't allow you to act how you'd have liked to.
For the future, have a think about how you want to adress fairly generic scenarios (e.g. racism, bullying, violence, arguments, debates etc.) so ur not necessarily caught so off guard.